Security at airports and in other travel related areas is an important issue given today's sociopolitical climate, as well as other considerations. One technique used to promote travel safety is through baggage inspection. In some instances, luggage is visually inspected and/or manually inspected by screeners. In other instances, luggage and other items are initially subjected to imaging using some type of imaging apparatus, and then inspected further with other means, such as hand search, if necessary. For example, an x-ray line scanner may be used to provide screeners with one or multiple substantially two dimensional views of the contents of a bag, or a computed tomography (CT) scanner may be used to provide views of two or three dimensional reconstructed images of scanned bags.
Presently, large amounts of data manipulation can be performed on two-dimensional and/or three-dimensional image sets of objects, such as luggage subjected to imaging by an imaging apparatus. Typically, x-ray line scanners are utilized in many airport check points. Data manipulation can allow for a certain amount of automated (pre-human) screening to be performed (e.g., to detect objects that may comprise threat items, such as explosives, for example). However, current technology limitations may not allow for effective automated screening of some items inside a piece of luggage. For example, current x-ray line scanners may merely provide one or two views of a scanned object. This limited imaging capability can prevent a screener from seeing clearly contents of a scanned bag, for example.
Accordingly, in some cases such as with laptop computers and video cameras, in order for automated screening to determine whether a particular item comprises a potential threat object, the item may have to be removed from the luggage and subjected to individual scanning. The process of removing an item (e.g., a laptop computer) from a piece of luggage and thus scanning and examining two separate items increases an amount of time needed to pass through a security check-point at an airport. This is an undesirable situation, at least, because there is a desire to increase throughput at airports.
Further, certain objects such as electronic devices (e.g., laptop computers) are often found in carry-on luggage. As described above, these objects are often removed from luggage and placed either into bins or directly on conveyor belts prior to being scanned by an imaging device. Detecting threats such as explosives (e.g., sheet shaped explosives) concealed inside electronic devices can be challenging. Images generated by an imaging device (e.g., CT scanner) can be corrupted by artifacts, which are usually generated by high density components inside electronic devices (e.g., an optical drive, battery inside a laptop, or other high atomic number Z components).